The fire had started as a plan: controlled, measured, meant to slow the enemy and block the gate. But plans were fragile things. Within minutes, the flames had turned wild.

  They crawled along the timbers of Harbinth’s wall, crept into roof beams, and spilled through cracks in the streets below. Smoke rose thick enough to block the morning light. The city had become a living thing, breathing fire, coughing ash.

  And inside it, war raged.

  The kobolds came in waves. They clawed up ladders slick with blood, leapt from burning carts, and scrambled over their fallen. Their shrieks drowned out the clash of metal and the shouting of orders. They fought without fear, their eyes wide and glassy, caught between fury and madness.

  The trolls pressed close behind them, swinging their massive clubs at the gate until it split open with a thunderous crack. Splinters burst outward like shards of bone. The main defense was gone. The streets of Harbinth were open.

  Inside the walls, the dwarves held fast.

  Thora Greyfell and her warriors fought in groups, shoulder to shoulder, forming tight circles where the battle was thickest. Their shields locked like the scales of a creature built for war. Sparks lit their beards and faces, but they did not waver. Every swing of a dwarven axe sent a kobold sprawling.

  Torli Underpick had taken position near the lower wall, directing the newer recruits. His voice boomed louder than the chaos. “Keep tight! Watch the gaps! Don’t give them room to breathe!”

  Beside him, two dwarves, Boren and Luth, fought like men possessed. Boren swung a hammer nearly as large as his torso, smashing through any kobold that broke the line. Luth fought quieter, blade flashing with careful precision. He moved with a rhythm that felt almost calm.

  “You still owe me a drink for that one in the tunnels,” Boren grunted between blows.

  Luth parried a strike and grinned faintly. “Win this and I’ll buy you the barrel.”

  Torli barked a laugh, though his eyes stayed sharp. He saw everything, the fire spreading, the thinning line, the way the ground shook beneath each troll’s step. “You two keep talking and I’ll make sure you’re on latrine duty till spring!”

  “Spring?” Boren shouted. “You planning to live that long?”

  Torli didn’t answer. He was too busy watching the shadows move through the smoke.

  Not all of them were theirs.

  Near the southern end of the wall, Lieutenants Lysa and Narl of the city watch were doing what they’d done every day since the first horn sounded: keeping order where order refused to exist.

  Lysa’s face was streaked with soot, her braid half-burnt, but her eyes burned with steady focus. She leaned over a wounded man, pressing cloth to his shoulder. “You’re not dying today, you hear me?”

  The man nodded weakly, teeth gritted.

  Narl approached, his spear darkened at the tip with blood. “We’ve got a breach by the tannery road,” he said, voice hoarse. “Half the street’s gone to smoke. Can’t see five feet ahead.”

  Lysa stood, glancing past him. “Pull the line back toward the well square. It’s higher ground. If we lose the lower streets, we trap them there instead of running from them.”

  Narl nodded but hesitated. “You think we can hold?”

  “Until we can’t,” she said simply.

  He looked at her for a long moment before grinning faintly. “Still giving the kind of answers that make me hate asking.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  She smirked, wiped her hands, and grabbed her sword. “Then stop asking and fight.”

  Together they ran toward the smoke.

  Eborin was on the main wall, his lungs burning from the heat. He scanned the field below. Even through the haze, he could see the rhythm of the enemy. The kobolds weren’t just charging, they were being directed.

  And then he saw him.

  A figure among them, taller, leaner, with armor made of bones and scales. The creature moved differently than the rest, its gestures sharp and commanding.

  Their lieutenant.

  Eborin didn’t think. He reached for a spear and hurled it down. It missed, grazing the creature’s shoulder. But that was enough. The kobold turned, yellow eyes locking on him through the haze.

  Split-Tongue.

  The war-leader hissed something guttural, then moved with frightening speed. He scaled the wall in seconds, using the gaps between stones as footholds. Eborin barely had time to draw his sword before the creature was on him.

  Twin obsidian blades slashed toward his chest. He blocked the first, but the second grazed his neck, slicing a shallow line that burned with heat.

  Eborin staggered back, swinging wide. He caught Split-Tongue in the shoulder, but the creature twisted and vanished into the smoke.

  “Come on then!” Eborin shouted, turning in place.

  Something moved behind him.

  Before he could react, both blades drove between his ribs. The breath left his lungs in a gasp that turned to silence. He fell to one knee, eyes dimming.

  Split-Tongue leaned close, whispering in a tongue Eborin didn’t understand. Then he twisted the blades free.

  Ennett saw the fall from the lower wall.

  For a moment, she didn’t breathe. Then the scream tore out of her, raw and full.

  She ran.

  Every step felt heavier, slower, the world closing around her in a tunnel of noise. She reached Eborin’s side and dropped beside him, pulling him into her arms. His armor was slick with blood.

  “Stay with me,” she said, shaking him. “You hear me? You stay.”

  Eborin’s lips moved, but no sound came. His hand found hers, weakly, and then slipped away.

  Ennett’s chest caved inward. She pressed her forehead to his and stayed there for a long moment, surrounded by fire and screams and everything breaking apart.

  Then she stood.

  Her sword rose slowly, shaking once before she steadied it.

  Her voice broke when she shouted. “You’re mine!”

  She charged.

  Split-Tongue turned in time to see her coming. His blades flashed, but she was faster. Her swing cut through one, then the other, then through him. Bone shattered, and the creature crumpled in a heap.

  The blow was clean, final.

  But she didn’t stop.

  She fought like someone who had nothing left to lose. Every strike was a scream. Every scream was a promise.

  Behind her, the dwarves saw the motion and rallied, roaring in unison. “To the gate! With the Commander!”

  The tide shifted.

  The defenders drove forward, step by step, forcing the kobolds back from the gate’s mouth. The trolls stumbled in confusion, several retreating as the fire caught their feet.

  Lysa and Narl appeared from the smoke, joining the push. Lysa’s sword was chipped and blackened, but her movements were sharp and precise. She fought beside Ennett without a word, covering her flank.

  Narl used his spear like a staff, sweeping low, tripping kobolds, finishing them with brutal efficiency.

  When a troll’s club swung too close, both grabbed Ennett and dove aside as it smashed through the stone beside them.

  “You all right?” Narl shouted over the noise.

  Ennett nodded once. “We hold this line.”

  The three of them stood together in the firelight, scarred, sweating, alive.

  Above them, the banners of Harbinth still hung, half-burned but visible. They fluttered weakly in the wind, edges glowing red from the heat.

  Maruzan fought near the base of the wall, watching the flames twist upward. For a second, through the chaos, he saw the sky, dark, choked, but moving. The birds still circled. The wind still came from the sea.

  It wasn’t over yet.

  The kobolds were falling back, regrouping. The fire had slowed them, but not stopped them. The trolls would return.

  Maruzan knew what came next would decide everything.

  He looked toward the gate, where Ennett stood with her sword raised high.

  She wasn’t done. None of them were.

  The city burned around them, but within that fire, something heldsomething fierce, something unbroken. Harbinth still stood. For now.